the door.----And then, fanning, she threw herself into a chair,
her sweet face all crimsoned over with passion.

I cast myself at her feet.--Begone, Mr. Lovelace, said she, with a
rejecting motion, her fan in her hand; for your own sake leave me!--My
soul is above thee, man! with both her hands pushing me from her!--Urge
me not to tell thee, how sincerely I think my soul above thee!--Thou
hast, in mine, a proud, a too proud heart to contend with!--Leave me, and
leave me for ever!--Thou has a proud heart to contend with!

Her air, her manner, her voice, were bewitchingly noble, though her words
were so severe.

Let me worship an angel, said I, no woman. Forgive me, dearest creature!
--creature if you be, forgive me!--forgive my inadvertencies!--forgive my
inequalities!--pity my infirmities!--Who is equal to my Clarissa?

I trembled between admiration and love; and wrapt my arms about her
knees, as she sat. She tried to rise at the moment; but my clasping
round her thus ardently, drew her down again; and never was woman more
affrighted. But free as my clasping emotion might appear to her
apprehensive heart, I had not, at the instant, any thought but what
reverence inspired. And till she had actually withdrawn [which I
permitted under promise of a speedy return, and on her consent to dismiss
the chair] all the motions of my heart were as pure as her own.

She kept not her word. An hour I waited before I sent to claim her
promise. She could not possibly see me yet, was her answer. As soon as
she could, she would.

Dorcas says, she still excessively trembled; and ordered her to give her
hartshorn and water.

A strange apprehensive creature! Her terror is too great for the
occasion. Evils are often greater in apprehension than in reality. Hast
thou never observed, that the terrors of a bird caught, and actually in
the hand, bear no comparison to what we might have supposed those terrors
would be, were we to have formed a judgment of the same bird by its
shyness before it was taken?

Dear creature!--Did she never romp? Did she never, from girlhood to now,
hoyden? The innocent kinds of freedom taken and allowed on these
occasions, would have familiarized her to greater. Sacrilege but to
touch the hem of her garment!--Excess of delicacy!--O the consecrated
beauty! How can she think to be a wife?

But how do I know till I try, whether she may not by a less alarming
treatment be prevailed upon, or whether